Research focus and projects

Intermedia: literature in the context of media studies and media history (literature, film, TV)

Current projects: Basic research

A culture of confessions – authorship and authority in a time of media change (monograph): How do new media framework conditions (hegemony of the “video sphere”, digital options) define new positions, characters and figures of the author and his authority? How do audiovisual and digital media, in particular, contribute to a hegemony of categories of autobiographies or self-representation?

Theory and (auto)biography (in collaboration with Dieter Thomä and Ulrich Schmid): Theory as autobiography, autobiography as theory; studies on the shaping of theory through subjectivity (e.g. in works of Guy Debord, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida).

Doctoral theses & post-doc projects

Autobiography and new media (Noémie Christen): The latest developments in the field of autobiography focus on two interrelated processes: the staging of private and intimate life on the one hand, and the use of new media, either in the form of intermedia or by choosing new carriers (e.g. blogs) on the other hand.

Self-projection of doctors – between medical and media discourse (Stéphanie Herber): This doctoral thesis examines the increasing level of self-projection of doctors in various media and the effects of this staging in the media. An overview of the development of the humanitarian element, e.g. at Médecins sans frontières or Terre des Hommes. How does homo oeconomicus become homo neuronalis/sentimentalis?

Swiss cinema network (post-doc project, Dr. Sophie Rudolph, carried out at the MCM 3 Research Institute for "Media and Culture") The project examines recent work in the Swiss film industry from the perspective of a network of actors. The study focuses on multilingualism in the Swiss film industry and its effects on film production.